


The Crab Shack Between Realms

by illwynd



Category: Thor (2011)
Genre: Flirting, Food, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-16
Updated: 2011-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-27 09:51:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illwynd/pseuds/illwynd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The tavern between realms has interesting dishes on offer now and then, and Loki is an adventurous eater.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Crab Shack Between Realms

**Author's Note:**

> Written to fill a prompt (http://norsekink.livejournal.com/6420.html?thread=12786708#t12786708) at the Norsekink LJ comm.

At the tavern between realms, the kitchen occasionally found itself in possession of various oddments of culinary interest, and Thor had long ago realized that he and his friends always seemed to wind up there on such occasions, at least briefly as they passed by on their way to and from various bolder adventures. He had quickly suspected collaboration occurring between his brother, Volstagg, and a secretive cabal of cooks and food merchants, but he was never able to prove it. And it all too often resulted in bizarre experiences. There had been the incident several years ago, involving lamb stew liberally seasoned with Muspelheim peppers (which he and the rest of them had thought the stuff of myth) that ended with Loki sprawling out with tears in his eyes and satisfaction on his face and everyone else in the room fanning their mouths and hoping for the mercy of some passing frost giant. And then there had been another time, when they had been served large plates of bacon and mysterious mushrooms grown underground in Nidavellir—it had been a strange evening, and all Thor could remember after the fact was Hogun speaking, at astounding length though still in a gruff mutter and mostly bordering on incomprehensible, among other things insisting that the stars were an apology from the universe for all the darkness that living things had to endure.

But mostly their evenings there involved bets and contests. Generally these were orchestrated between Volstagg and Loki—they would attempt to make a wager with, perhaps, a group of wandering Ljosalfar over whether their hungriest could consume enough foodstuffs to beat out the mighty appetite of Volstagg. Eventually the ante would raise, the joking insults would be bantered back and forth, and Loki would volunteer himself as challenger if they would not face Volstagg. Snickering behind their hands at the lean, lithe man with the tilted grin and the glinting green eyes, they would inevitably accept. And those evenings would end in Loki laughing fit to burst and gathering up his winnings.

Of course, they could not possibly know that Volstagg was in fact more of a gourmet, and Loki apparently had a hollow leg. By now, word had spread, though, and the only other tavern-goers who could be finagled into such bets came from far off enough that they had never had a chance to be warned that the only way to beat Loki at an eating contest would involve consuming the plate the food arrived on as well. Yet Thor, Loki, and their friends still wound up at the tavern whenever there were choice temptations to be tasted.

Part of why had to be Loki’s peculiar relationship with food. For the trickster, a particularly good and sizeable meal seemed to have the equivalent effect that a bottle of quality wine had on others (though plenty of that always flowed as well, making it hard to be sure what was truly the cause). It left him smiling warmly at every one of his companions, talking uninhibitedly, and touching freely. He would attempt to drape himself over Fandral to feed him candied flowers from his fingers, or lean close to Hogun to whisper suggestions in his ear (“my friend, you _must_ try these. They are called oysters, and they are nearly as closed-lipped as you. But I promise, you will like them.”) He would pat Volstagg on the belly and compare his own, leaning back so that the tiny, rounded food-bulge was visible on his usually flat abdomen under his light tunic. Sif he teased differently, demanding that she dare him to eat whatever extreme dish he could find, telling her that if she refused, he’d have no excuse to do it and would then be saddened and his sorrow would be on her head. (She and Loki had come to an arrangement that pleased them both in various matters, and it had begun with the deal that he would take off her hands the copious amounts of candies and sweets gifted to her by confused suitors and he would in return take on the task of intimidating them into keeping their distance. Not that a warrior woman like Sif couldn’t have done this herself, of course. But when Loki set about frightening someone off, the results were worth watching.)

His brother was the only one who didn’t receive this treatment from Loki on their nights out for adventures in gastronomy. Instead… well, take for example the night of the crabs.

It had begun with Thor eyeing the massive, steaming tray on their table. It was covered in what seemed to be hand-sized, orange-red, many-legged creatures with _claws_ , all surrounded by bowls filled to their brims with hot, melted butter.

“What _are_ they?” Thor had asked, voice filled with vague caution. The smell was peculiar, not actually bad but foreign enough to put him on guard. As he watched, Loki took one of the things—yes, those were definitely claws—from the tray and placed it before himself next to the set of metal implements they’d all been brought.

“They’re crabs, and don’t gape like that, brother; it’s impolite. They come from the sea. They’re a Midgardian delicacy.”

“Apparently there is a funny story behind this,” Volstagg began, and he too had already selected one of the crabs for his plate. “The cook tells me they acquired these from a group of dark elves who had cause to visit Midgard, and who during their travels met with a sailing ship full of pirates. These pirates had, not long before, claimed for themselves a particular shipping lane and demanded their tithe from the fisher-folk. So when the dark elves…”

Thor was at that time distracted from Volstagg’s tale (he felt sure he would be able to jump back into the stream of it later as it began to approach a climactic point—the increase in theatrics would alert him), and the cause of this distraction was the loud c-c-crack, c-c-crack, CRACK as Loki split open one of the armored shells. His brother was utterly focused on the task, ignoring the spritz of juices that spattered the table around him, and he licked his lips as his work revealed a chunk of white meat. He promptly skewered it on the tines of a long, narrow fork and dipped it in one of the bowls before bringing the meat to his mouth. And then he closed his lips over it. As he chewed, his eyes slipped shut and his face smoothed as he emitted a sound of pleasure that was surely too lusty for the dining table.

It went like that for some time. The strangely brutal cracking of the shells, the vivid red and the innocent white of the boiled flesh, the moisture licked from Loki’s dexterous fingertips with the soft pink of his curling tongue and the hint of butter sheen on his lips… Thor couldn’t help but watch in almost morbid fascination as the pile of broken shells grew like vanquished enemies on a field of battle. And there was certainly something carnivorous in his brother’s toothy grin between bites. He delved greedily into the crevices and even sucked the last tidbits from the shell.

“What does it taste like?” Thor found himself asking, unable to take his eyes from the sight. (For one thing, the crabs _looked back_ at him. At least Loki’s bread-dipped-in-melted-cheese-mixed with-ale had not had eyes, even if it had been a waste of good ale.)

Loki gave him a look that said he didn’t know what he had done to deserve such a brother, but surely it hadn’t been _that_ bad.

“Try it, Thor. Unless you lack the courage, in which case… there will be more for me.” His grin was impossibly cheeky, especially given how he punctuated the words with a red claw waved lightly in one hand.

“You did wind up liking the truffles,” Sif pointed out after swallowing her own bite of crab leg.

Despite the goading, Thor had declined, deciding to stick with more familiar fare for the nonce, and Loki had licked butter off his fingers at him and reached for another crab.

But for all Loki’s flirtations with their friends, it was Thor who offered him a place to lean when he began to look bloated, and sat by him later as he groaned at the ceiling of his chambers, stuffed to the gills and belatedly realizing it.

“You never know your limits,” Thor said, as he had the last time.

“I do not care one whit what my limits are. Not when they are delicious and drenched in butter,” Loki replied before sticking his tongue out with a sigh. And Thor put his chin on his hand to wait for another round of complaints to come.

“I shall surely explode,” Loki whined, exactly as predicted.

“You’re the one who kept eating. You never can stop at enough,” Thor noted seriously.

“Of course I must exceed enough, and I must stroll happily past all limits, and I must go beyond the boundaries of sense, good taste, and sanity,” Loki said with a laugh as he stretched out to try to find a comfortable position in which to lie. “What fun would it be if I didn’t?”

It was not until years later that it occurred to Thor to wonder how Loki knew so much of the cuisines of other realms, and it was not until even later that he thought back on Loki’s words about boundaries, and more fully understood them, and ached for the feel of his brother slumped against him on the bench, overfull and smiling in warm contentment.

And it was some time after that, still, that Thor was finally convinced to try crab meat.

It wasn’t bad, really.


End file.
